The subject matter disclosed within relates generally to a device in a control system, and more particularly to an intelligent power tap for providing power and communicating in industrial automation applications.
Control systems are at the core of modern manufacturing. These systems control diverse processes from steel and automotive products to mass distribution products associated with food and beverages, for example. In general, control systems require a processor and related program to direct a related system of Input/Output (I/O) interfaces (e.g., I/O modules) which in turn report and control industrial processes. I/O modules may be selected to perform digital style (e.g., 120V input/output) and/or analog style control (e.g., 4-20 ma input/output), for example. Also, generally associated with control systems are related racks, power supplies and control networks for housing, powering, and communicating with the associated I/O modules.
Over time, industrial system demands have steadily increased. For example, system demands for lower costs and increased flexibility are increasingly necessary for modern factories to compete on the global stage. Lower system costs provide manufacturers with a competitive advantage by realizing a better return on capital investments. Flexibility enables a manufacturer to respond to changing market dynamics as product and sales requirements change. Unfortunately, conventional systems many times are burdensome to install/upgrade and often require manufacturer's to install more system components than necessary. Thus, conventional systems generally do not provide the requisite flexibility and associated lower costs required by modern systems.
One of the solutions that addresses the above increased demands is the emergence of industrial control networks for communicating control and status data between industrial controllers and devices used in control systems such as I/O devices, motor starters, relays, push buttons, drives, etc. These industrial control networks can help reduce wiring costs, and provide requisite flexibility when system upgrades are required.
However, in many industrial control network systems, inefficiencies still exist when required to connect or wire a power source to each device within the control system. In such systems, a power tap can be used to inject either a network or switched power (often referred to as control power) onto the system communication cable, thereby powering all aspect of devices within the system.
However, in existing industrial control network systems, the power tap providing power to nodes in control systems is not smart and cannot provide required information to diagnose system related problems. Thus, there is a need for providing an intelligent power tap.